Thailand Blasted for Modern Slavery in New Report

Originally posted by Yahoo News Digest on July 28, 2015—
“Thai authorities are upset about being blacklisted by the U.S. for the second year in a row for failing to do enough to combat modern-day slavery. Washington accused Thailand of failing to tackle human trafficking, while praising progress in Malaysia and Cuba, in a report on a global scourge decried as “modern slavery.” The State Department said that labor abuses in the Southeast Asian country’s seafood sector are persistent, abusive and largely ignored by the government. Those abuses have been widely documented in a series of stories this year by The Associated Press that tracked the supply chains of major U.S. retailers to Thai processors selling slave-caught seafood. Those reports have prompted rescues and repatriations of more than 800 men this year. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said today that Thailand was working on solving the issues and that the assessment was made when his administration, which took over after a military coup last year, was beginning to address the problems.”